The US Central Intelligence Agency failed to disclose to President George W. Bush that relatives of Iraqi scientists told the agency that programs to develop unconventional weapons were abandoned before the war, the New York Times reported yesterday.

　　The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence uncovered the fact that the CIA didn't distribute the information to Bush, the newspaper said in an article on its Website, citing unidentified government officials.

　　CIA officials have said that only a few relatives of Iraqi scientists made statements that weapons programs were stopped and tried to play down its significance.

　　In Iraq, a group of armed, masked men threatened yesterday to kill Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi if he did not leave the country. He was accused of murdering innocent Iraqis and defiling the Muslim religion.

　　In a videotape sent to the al-Arabiya television station, a group calling itself the "Salvation Movement," questioned how al-Zarqawi could use Islam to justify killing innocent civilians, the targeting of government officials and the kidnapping and beheading of foreigners.

　　"He must leave Iraq immediately, he and his followers and everyone who gives shelter to him and his criminal actions," said a man on the video.

　　The threat came a day after US-led coalition forces, who have been targeting al-Zarqawi, launched an air strike in the restive city of Fallujah on a suspected safe house used by his followers. The attack killed at least 15 people.

　　On Monday, US forces dropped two tons of bombs on a purported militant safehouse in Fallujah, killing 15 members of one family, according to witnesses, and turning the building into a 9-meter-deep pit of sand and rubble.

　　Rescue workers in Fallujah picked up body parts after the US airstrike, witnesses said. Video from Associated Press Television News showed the explosion flung bricks blocks away. Blood was splashed on a nearby wall.

　　Men gathered at the 9-meter-deep pit where the house had been and pulled out clothes, including a young child's shirt, from the rubble.

　　"Is this acceptable to the Iraqi government?" asked an angry man at the scene. "Where are human rights?"

　　Yasser Abed, 17, said 15 members of his family, including 12 children, were killed in the air strike. Abed, his father and a brother were out of the house at the time of the attack, he said.

　　The military said it had dropped four 225-kilogram bombs and two 450-kilogram bombs. The attack used guided weapons and underscored the resolve of coalition and Iraqi forces to destroy terrorist networks within Iraq, the military said.

　　A car bomb blew up in the town of Khalis yesterday, killing 13 people attending a wake for the victims of a previous attack, hospital officials said.

　　(Bloomberg News/AP)